


She Has Found Me

by dontkissthewriter



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Biting, Car Sex, Choking, Co-workers, Declarations Of Love, Dorks in Love, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friendship/Love, Hair-pulling, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, Marking, Oblivious Spencer Reid, Road Trip, Rough Sex, Sad Spencer Reid, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sex, Sex in a Car, Smut, hickey, motel sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:08:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24494773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontkissthewriter/pseuds/dontkissthewriter
Summary: When you and Spencer are left in Arizona by the team, the only way back to Quantico is through a 34 hour road trip. But both of you are hiding things, and nothing stays secret forever.
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Reader
Comments: 33
Kudos: 420





	1. Chapter 1

I didn’t realize I had been abandoned by my family until after Spencer and I got our cell service back.

Arizona was full of dead zones, I already knew that, but neither of us expected it to be _so_ dead that we missed over thirty texts and calls (each!) from various members of our team—including the esteemed Miss Penelope Garcia, who was supposed to be able to find anyone off the grid with a stroke of her keyboard and a quick one-liner.

Spencer whistled between his teeth, fingers flying over the keypad of his phone. He was probably already done reading, the bastard. The bright sunlight reflected off his sunglasses. “This is not good,” he muttered. “Not good at all.”

I searched through my own messages in the passenger seat of the car, feet propped on the dash. I had abandoned my heels halfway into the thirty minute drive back from the family of the victim’s house. “I don’t understand why they wouldn’t just wait for us to… . Oh.”

It was palpable, the moment of realization when we read the same text at the same time. A single, identical text from Hotch, sent to both of us, one after another. _Security breach in Quantico, all hands on deck situation. Can’t afford to wait. Call when you can_.

They left us. Our team fucking left without us!

“Are they _serious_?” I put my phone down to stare at Spencer, dread erupting in my gut like a bad fish taco. He looked just as bewildered as I felt.

“When’s the last time you’ve known Hotch to joke around? Hang on, I’m gonna call him.” The bright sheen of sweat on his forehead was the only sign of his nerves, besides the higher pitched tone and bouncing knee and shaking fingers and and nervous glances around the parking lot we had stopped in and the fact that he kept grabbing at his hair, when he only did when he was about to have a breakdown. Man of steel, he was.

I kept reading my missed messages while Spencer launched into an interrogation. From Morgan: _U guys better show up before hotch explodes, where r u???, hurry up hurry up hurry up, we can’t wait much longer, hello hello?, u better HOPE ur dead before hotch finds you._

From Garcia: _please pick up, please pick up, please pick up, please pick up, please pick up._ It went on for about 20 messages.

At the sound of Hotchner’s familiar, agitated voice, I hissed at Spencer, “Put it on speaker!”

He scowled at my tone, but did it anyways. “Hotch, you’re on speaker, I’ve got Y/N with me.”

“What the hell is going on? There’s a security breach? Did you guys seriously just _leave_ without us?” I started speaking before Spencer had fully closed his mouth.

“Let him talk,” Spencer whispered harshly at me.

I glared. He glared back. We were best friends to everyone but each other.

“We didn’t have time to wait for you guys,” Hotch intoned. “But yes, there was a security breach. Right now, almost every available agent is being called to base. We don’t know much about the situation, but we had to leave immediately.”

“Are you guys on the jet right now?”

“Yes.”

“Well, can’t you just … turn around?” My voice picked up a higher tone at the end, knowing how stupid I sounded.

“No, Agent, we cannot just turn around a thousand ton jet plane to come get you two. I’m sorry, but when we realized we couldn’t get in contact with you guys soon enough, we didn’t have a choice. What took you guys so long getting back?”

Spencer and I looked at the empty bags stuffed with wrappers from Wendy’s in the backseat. We looked at each other. At the same time, we realized exactly what we needed to say.

“ _Traffic_ ,” we said together.

His sigh was so strong I could almost feel it. I had a suspicious he didn’t quite believe us. “Well, I hope the traffic was worth it. You’re going to have to drive back.”

“What?” Spencer yelped. “Hotch, that’s nearly a thirty five hour drive, wouldn’t it be faster just to send us the jet?”

“I am _not_ staying in a car with Spencer for two freakin’ days!”

“The Bureau is halting all flights in and out of Quantico. You have to drive, I’m sorry.”

Words failed me. If I had known that going to the victim’s house to tell the family that we caught the unsub in person was going land me on a road trip with the one person I never wanted to spend that much isolated time with in the world, I would’ve just sent a text. “I … This has gotta be the world’s worst joke.”

Spencer was staring straight ahead, out of the windshield. His shoulders were slumped, tips of his ears red. “You’ll send us money, right? For gas? I love my job, but not enough to spend a hundred and eighty seven dollars on this.”

“How do you know it would be exactly a hundred and eighty seven dollars, Spence? _Where_ did you get that number?” God, I already sounded mad at him!

“The cost of gas prices in each state we’d have to drive through, along with the miles per hour we’d have to average to make it back as soon as possible, with the average speed limi—”

“I know this is an unfortunate situation, Agents,” Aaron said, cutting off his—no doubt incredibly accurate—explanation. “Of course we’ll send you money for food, gas, and a hotel, and anything else you need. I have to go, but drive safe, and call Garcia if anything comes up.”

He hung up over our overlapping protests. Silence settled in the car like a pall. The heat, which had previously been bearable, was now digging into my skin. My pants were too tight, ears too big, throat too noisy when I swallowed. Neither of us looked at each other.

“So… .” Spencer started, but trailed off. His fingers drummed on the wheel.

“Road trip. Road trip, on the road. Road trip with Spencer. My best friend Spencer. This is good. This is fine. I’m not freaking out. I am _not_ freaking out.” My fingers tightened around the phone.

“I am! I can’t spend that much time in a car, I start getting bored and when I start getting bored I start doing dumb things. Even as a kid, I would do this thing in long road trips where I would take apart the radio and try to rewire it so I could listen in on the military channels. I don’t think I ever figured it out. Maybe I could do it now—”

Just as he reached for the knobs on the radio, I slapped his hand away. “If you take away my stations, I will murder you myself.”

“Great, we’re two minutes in and you’re already threatening to murder me!” He threw his hands up, accidentally smacked them against the ceiling. His sunglasses were dropping down his nose.

I groaned loudly, dramatically, sliding down my seat until I was bent in half. “Let’s just get this over with. Can’t promise I won’t crash the car if you get too annoying.”

He pushed my legs off the dash. I tried not to linger on the feeling of his hand on the exposed skin of my ankle. “I say we just spend the night in the hotel and get an early start tomorrow. What do you think?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.” He was already starting the car again, glancing over his shoulder to back out of the parking space. “I’ll draft up a driving schedule. If we each take five hour turns at sixty five miles per hour, with a break for the night—”

I turned up the radio as loud as it could go, drowning him out. “Sorry, can’t hear you! The music is just—just too loud!”

He turned it down, but didn’t continue his spiral. “What do you think is happening in Quantico?”

“Don’t know. I’ll bet Strauss is gonna tear us a new one, though, for not being there. I am talking suspended _without_ pay, baby.” I was already getting antsy at the thought of being stuck in the car for so long. I started drumming my fingers on my legs. The dull Arizona landscape was whizzing by outside my window. When we first arrived, I thought it was beautiful, all the dramatic mountains in the distance and the miles and miles of untouched, burnt red land. The shrubs, dry and wiry, that were too strong to be killed by the intense heat, growing no matter what the environment told them to do.

Now, though, the landscape was just a landscape. The mountains just rocks. The shrubs, nothing but dead plants. _What are men, compared to rocks and mountains?_ I had recited when we first landed and took in the environment.

 _Pride and Prejudice,_ Spencer had clarified to the team.

Spencer pulled up to the hotel. All the other vans the team had been using were gone. As we got out from the car, each holding our share of the empty food wrappers, he said, “Look on the bright side. We’ll have the whole trip to take it easy before getting back to work.”

His shaky optimism, a result of my apparent sulking, was enough for me to smile at him. I was being a bitch, I knew. He didn’t deserve that. And he was my best friend—there were worse people to be on road trips with. “Sure, Spence. You’re right. I’m gonna take a shower. Order in for dinner?”

“Will do.”

In the hallway our rooms were in, I watched him walk away while standing outside of my door; the key-card forgotten in my hand. His hands were rifling through his pockets to find his own. He had stripped off the sweater vest he wore over his button-down in the car. The blue button down was stretched over his broad shoulders, untucked in the back. Holster crooked. Every inch perfection.

It wasn’t that I hated Spencer. I could never hate him. But going on a two day road trip with the one person I loved more than anything wasn’t my idea of a good time. Especially when I loved him in a much different way than he could ever love me.

\- — - — - — -

The next morning, we were checked out, packed up, and in the car by six thirty, courtesy of Spencer getting into my room and dragging me out of bed. I still don’t know how he got in.

“Hate you,” I grumbled. Even the coffee he shelled out for couldn’t help me get over the fact that the sun was just barely wavering over the horizon. Warming my thighs was the bag of McDonald’s we got—the first and last time we would be eating from that particular chain, he assured me. I knew he only got it because I loved their breakfast burritos.

Spencer volunteered for the first driving shift. He ate his hash brown while navigating out of the small city our case had been in. His hair wasn’t done the way it normally was, slicked out of his face. Instead the golden brown curls fell into his eyes and shimmered when the light hit them just right. “Sure you do,” he said absently.

I had forgone my usual work clothes to the casual ones (AKA pajamas) I packed in my go bag. Although we couldn’t be seen too laid back while on a case, we were allowed whatever we wanted to sleep in. My shorts, which were meant to be workout shorts but had never seen the light of an asphalt track, were the most comfortable thing I owned.

Spencer didn’t go for the same vibe as I did. He was still wearing work clothes. The color of vest today was a dark brown and maroon.

“I don’t know how you can wear that with the heat,” I said.

“I get cold a lot. Plus, you’re going to regret wearing all your comfortable clothes so early on when you have to drive wearing a pencil skirt.” He didn’t look at me when he spoke. Always the safest driver in the fleet.

“I’m not worried, my dear, darling Reid. Unlike certain unnamed people, I went to college at a normal age when I had to both pay for and do my own laundry, and I know how to make clothes last a while.”

“Hey, I did my own laundry in college!” He protested. He glanced away from the road for the barest second to see me down a mouthful of burrito.

“Sure you did,” I mumbled through the wad of hot sauce and cheese. “Not like you told me yourself you blackmailed thy fellow students into doing it for you.”

He made an indignant noise in his throat. “It wasn’t blackmail. I said I would do their homework if they helped me out here and there.”

“Extortion, then. You’re perjuring yourself, you make it too easy!”

He shoved me gently, grudgingly cracking a smile. “You don’t have it on record, this would never hold up in court. Try again.”

“I call my witness! I’m the witness, and I say that you _told me yourself_ —”

“I object, you’re totally biased—”

“You told one Mr. Johnny ‘Hurl Master’ Goldman that you would make sure he passed physics if he—”

“Where’s the proof? I demand to see your source—”

“My source is my _brain_ in my _head_!” I aggressively tapped the side of my head to emphasize my point, cackling at his disgraced expression.

He grinned after a second, not bothering to hide it. “You know why they called him Hurl Master?”

“No, why?”

“He threw up in every single classroom he had been in on campus.”

“Oh. That’s gross!” I snorted into my cup, sipping at the caffeine.

He shrugged. “It’s just what he did.”

“Did you guys bully him?”

“Oh no, everyone loved him. He taught me how to play soccer.”

“Oh, that’s why you suck at it—!” I broke off into laughter when he loudly protested and reached over to start messing up my hair. I reached over the center console to return the favor, ruining his curls.

“Not the driver, not while I’m _driving_!” He grabbed my wrist and held it in a tight grip. I tried to tug away, but he wouldn’t let go. “Will you apologize?”

“ _Apologize_?” I squawked. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“You said I was bad at soccer,” he said plainly. He slowed the car to allow a pedestrian to jog across. “That’s ad hominem.”

“You _are_. I played soccer with you on that case in Ohio, remember? I beat your ass.”

“We played in a hotel room with an empty soda can for a ball, that doesn’t count, it doesn’t give any real measure of technical skill and you _know_ it.” He hit the steering wheel with his free hand to emphasize his point.

Before I could begin my rebuttal, his phone began to ring. The ID told us it was Hotch. I gave him a smart ass look as if to say, _Now what are you gonna do?_ He wouldn’t take his other hand off the wheel, wouldn’t let go of my wrist with the other.

“Would you answer that for me?” He asked cheekily.

I rolled my eyes, but didn’t want to dare the wrath of our supervisor. I grabbed the phone and put it on speaker. “Hey Hotch, you’re on speaker.”

“I’ve got the team here. We wanted to check in, how are you doing?”

“Well, Spencer won’t admit that I’m right about _everything_ , _all_ the time—”

“It’s going fine, Hotch,” he spoke over me. “We’ve been on the road for about an hour, now.”

“Better not piss her off while you’re stuck in a car with her, kid,” Derek said. “I made that mistake once with my girl. Never again.”

 _My girl._ Insinuating that I was _Spencer’s_ girl. I lost track of my thoughts for a moment. It seemed Spencer did, too, because he opened and closed his mouth twice without speaking.

He let go of my wrist. Didn’t make eye contact. Hands at ten-and-two. I laced my fingers together in my lap, retreating back into my side of the car.

He cleared his throat before asking, “So, what do we know about the business at base?”

“Not much,” JJ said. “They won’t really tell us anything.”

Emily spoke next. I could almost see her leaning over the table the way she did whenever she was on speaker, like she didn’t believe her voice would travel all the way. “I’ve been talking to my old contacts, and they say that everyone is going crazy at the top. Apparently there was an information leak, they think it might have come from the inside.”

“Shit, really?” I tried to ignore the sting in my throat by focusing on the conversation. “What information?”

“Don’t know, but get this—the higher powers called in _Penelope_ to investigate.” That was Rossi. He sounded like it was some big prank he didn’t want to pass on.

“Penelope _Garcia_?” Spencer asked. His eyebrows shot to his hairline.

“No, Penelope the fairy tail princess. _Obviously_ Garcia,” Morgan said. “She texted us once to let us know she was leaving and then completely went off grid.”

“Jesus,” I breathed. “This could be bigger than we thought.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” scoffed Rossi.

“We can’t talk long, we’re still waiting to hear from Strauss. She’s put a pause on all cases.”

“She can _do_ that?” Spencer asked. He risked a glance to me. I only saw it out of the corner of my eyes.

“Apparently. However, we can still send out profiles for the stations that ask for our help, and we all have a _lot_ of paperwork to do,” Aaron said pointedly. “So you guys should go get a head start on that.”

There were grumblings, but soon the sound of the team clearing out of the room came through the phone.

When he spoke again, it sounded quieter, more anxious. Or, as anxious as Hotchner could ever sound. “Listen, I know you two are already stressed out, but if you could make your trip as fast as possible, that would be … helpful.” His voice dropped even more. “I don’t think Chief Strauss knows you aren’t here. So, maybe, if you could get back before she pays the BAU a visit … it wouldn’t hurt.”

“Agent Hotchner, straying on the dark side,” I jeered. “Next you’re going to use blue pen instead of black on your reports.”

Spencer snorted. “He’ll switch entirely to pencil.”

“ _Gasp_! We’ve turned him into a little rebel!”

My supervisor’s familiar, agitated sigh was soothing. It made me feel like things weren’t entirely going to hell. “Just get back soon. And drive _safe_.”

“He means you,” Spencer jabbed.

“He does not!”

“Yes, I do. I’ve seen the way you drive, Agent. You’re functional, at best.”

“ _Hey_!” I was great at driving! He never complained about it before, at least.

“I have to go. I’ll send some money later for food.”

We said our goodbyes. It was silent in the car for the next while. A comfortable silence. He drove like an old man, and I watched the Arizonian background slowly turn more urban.

“You know,” I eventually ventured. “This is kind of my high school dream.”

He glanced over. He had donned his sunglasses when the sun started piercing the tinted windshield, as had I my oversized, dramatic ones I used when I was off work. “What do you mean?”

I shrugged. The drawstrings of my shorts were twisted around my finger so many times the tip was numb. “You know. Road trip, completely funded, with my best friend. At the time, I always thought it would be with Monica Shepherd, but then she stole my favorite sundress. Now I hate her.” I paused, then titled my head to look at him. “This is a good backup, though.”

“That’s nice,” he said sarcastically. “Second choice.”

“To be fair, I didn’t even know you when I was in high school. I’m pretty sure you were already graduated from college by then.” The window was cracked, the wind brushing my hair out of my face. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine it was a person.

“And uh, why was that your high school dream?”

My eyebrows drew together of their own free will. “Isn’t it everyone’s? Didn’t you dream of it?”

“No, never. I was too busy. Plus, it wasn’t realistic. I never had time to dream about things I want.” He cleared his throat, suddenly bashful. “I always knew that once I graduated college, I would have to take care of my mom, find a good job to support her.”

 _Oh, shit. Forgot about that._ Guilt made me tug on a strand of my hair to occupy my eyes. “It’s just sort of a _thing_ , I guess. It was pretty much all I wanted back when I was a junior. I had it all planned out, down to the playlist and the snacks we’d have. Twizzlers and pretzels.”

“That sounds like a dangerous combination.”

“I was seventeen, gimme a break. So, what, you just never had dreams? I _don’t_ mean the dreams you _know_ you’re gonna achieve, like getting a PhD, or getting a super badass job, because you always knew you would be successful.”

He bobbed his head like he was agreeing, but didn’t want to.

“I mean, like, a _daydream_. Something you want so badly you could never stop thinking about it. Even though you know … you know that you probably won’t get it. You know it’s unrealistic. It just makes you happy to think about it.” I trailed off at the end, realizing I had gotten too immersed in my own present daydream. In him. God, how much more fucking obvious could I be?

Spencer was quiet, contemplative. His fingers flexed around the wheel. “I guess so. I mean, yes. I have that. Now, I mean, I have it now, but not when I was younger.” His Adam’s apple rode his throat like an elevator.

“Really? Can I get a sneak peak?” I tried to sound more teasing, wanting to lighten the mood. Divert the attention.

“No _way_.” He flicked on the turn signal while shaking his head. “The whole point of a daydream is to keep it inside your head.”

“Oh, come on, Spence!” I whined. “Aren’t we friends? Aren’t we _best_ friends?”

“Sure we are. That doesn’t mean I want you to know everything in my head. Trust me, you’re better off not knowing.”

I groaned at him. “I can’t believe I marathoned Star Trek with you for nothing! Hey, where are we going?” He had merged off the highway, which wasn’t a part of his carefully drawn up driving plan.

“Pit stop.” He pulled into the parking lot of a gas station.

I checked the gas meter. “We aren’t low.”

“I know.” He reached behind my seat to grab the shoes I had thrown off and tossed them onto my lap. “Put these on.”

I scrambled to get out of the car while he climbed out smoothly. He pulled his sunglasses off and tucked them into the front of his sweater vest, so I did the same with my pair. Tucked it into his vest, I mean, not my own shirt. My eyes lingered on the pale half-moons of his nails when he reached up to adjust them.

“What’s going on?”

He held the door open for me. A cool blast of air conditioning hit me in the face. We walked together into the dilapidated gas station. There was a single worker I could spot through the anti-shoplifting mirrors stationed around the aisles. No other shoppers.

The young looking cashier looked up from her brightly covered magazine and grinned. “Hey, good morning!”

“Morning,” I said back, even though it was nearly noon. “How’s it going?”

“Pretty good, hope everything’s alright. Looking for anything?”

Spencer stepped up next to me, flashing a polite smile at her while gently pushing me by the small of my back. “No thanks, we can find it.”

Her freckled, tanned nose wrinkled when she smiled again. The piercing in her nose shined in the fluorescent lighting. “Okeydokey. Let me know if you need help!”

“You got it,” I managed to get out before he had me pushed out of sight from the counter. “Spence, what’s going on?”

“What drinks?” He asked. His eyes were bright, excited.

“Huh?”

“In your dream road trip. You wanted pretzels, twizzlers, what kind of drinks?”

I blinked dumbly, mind lagging. “Uh … I—I think it was apple juice and Red Bull.”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

“It’s balanced!”

“I’ll get the snacks, you go find us drinks. Grab a couple each.”

“Wait, seriously?” Biting my lip, I was trying not to grin too widely.

He nodded. “Yeah. We’re already on the road, there’s no reason we can’t have fun with it.”

“It’s gonna throw us off schedule,” I warned.

“The longer we stay here, the more time we waste,” he rebutted.

Too excited to stop myself, I punched him in the arm. “Alright then, go get our food.”

As I raided the shelves of drinks, it was all too easy to imagine this wasn’t an urgent mission we needed to get over with. Too easy to imagine this was something out of work, something we chose to do together because we just liked spending time together. _Way_ too easy to pretend that this was a world where I didn’t have to hide anything about me, didn’t have to mentally edit every line I was fed by my subconscious when I spoke to him. The shoplifting mirror above the liquor showed me Spencer a few aisles behind me, head poking out the top of the shelves, comparing two different bags of chips. Like he could feel me looking, he glanced up into the same mirror and grinned.

“Hurry up,” he called over.

It was impossible not to smile back. “This is a delicate decision.”

I buried my head in the racks, grabbing two cans of Red Bull (for me) and two bottles of fruity drinks for Spencer. There was an eight pack of child size apple juice bottles I snagged as well.

Walking into the aisle Spencer was in, I bounced on the balls of my feet while waiting for him to notice me.

He already had some things picked out—a bag of pistachios, a bag of trail mix, and the twizzlers and pretzels. “Get everything?”

“Mhm!” I showed him all the drinks I had. “You?”

“I think this should be all. I wanted to balance out the unhealthiness of _your_ options with some protein. It’ll also give us energy when the sugar crash hits.” He led the way to front counter, talking over his shoulder. “The pretzels, I can excuse, but twizzlers are gross. In college, I ate so many at one time that I threw up.”

I rolled my eyes. “You threw up because you were a fourteen year old who wasn’t supervised by an adult for the first time in his life with a forty dollar a week allowance by the college, all of which you spent on junk food.”

“Actually, it was a twenty dollar allowance. I used half to buy my way into the weekly poker night,” he added at my confused look.

“Hmph!” I grabbed the wallet out of his back pocket—he jumped and smacked at my hands—to pull some money out. “The poker nights that you walked out of with two hundred dollars, right?”

He bit his lip, trying not to smile when he was making a point. “Not every time. There was a learning curve.”

“Eighteen twenty-three,” the cashier told me. I gave her a twenty and told her to keep the change. The fact that it was Spencer’s money made it easier.

While bagging our snacks, the teen paused like she was contemplating something, then turned to us and said, “I just gotta say, you two are beyond adorable.” She slid the bags across the counter. “My boyfriend and I can’t go longer than five minutes, tops, before fighting. You’ll have to write a book,” she laughed.

I froze for a second, lips stuck in my polite smile. _She thinks we’re dating_. Coughing awkwardly, I began to say, “Oh, we aren’t—” but Spencer cut me off, putting that hand on the small of my back again and starting to lead me away. He smiled and nodded at her, saying, “Thanks, have a nice day.”

And then he was pushing me outside, climbing into the car and starting to dig through the plastic bags.

 _Okay, I guess?_ I hopped in and stared at him, eyes squinted.

He didn’t look up from the bag. “What is it?” Spencer grabbed my sunglasses I tucked into the collar of his shirt and handed them to me.

 _Don’t address it_ , I told myself. _Addressing it invites the reality that it was a fluke, something you both knew wasn’t supposed to happen. If you don’t address it, it doesn’t have to be something unexpected._ “Pass me the twizzlers?”

There must have been tension in his shoulders, because I could see them relax. “What kind of drink is this?” He asked after tossing them into my lap.

I kicked off my shoes again and sat crisscross. The thing about the vans the FBI drove was that they were _huge_. Plenty of room to relax, but they got hot really quick. “I dunno, I just grabbed it. They seemed fruity.”

He took the cap off and hesitantly sniffed it. A small frown marred his lips. He looked like a dog who didn’t know whether there was a medicine pill hidden in their chunk of peanut butter.

“Jesus, Spence, it isn’t poisoned.” I plucked it out of his hands and claimed the first sip. The texture surprised me at first—it was more smoothie-like than I expected. I hummed my pleasure and passed it back. “It’s good. Try it.”

Sign number two that something was up: Spencer didn’t complain before taking another drink. Didn’t wipe off the rim. Didn’t sigh dramatically. He was a total germaphobe, and yet there he was right next to me, drinking from the same place my lips had been, no problem. To some people, that could be considered a kiss.

A drop of condensation rolled down his wrist. When I swallowed, my throat was so dry it clicked. “I think we should get going.”

He nodded while swallowing. Spencer put the rest of the bags in the back—save for one Red Bull he passed to me—and said, “I was thinking, and the best place to stop for the night is in Arkansas. We’ll get there around six, and if we drive till ten we’ll be almost halfway between Arizona and Virginia, so you should use your phone and find a motel and then call in to let them know we’re coming. Tomorrow we can sleep in, leave at seven, and hopefully arrive in Quantico at six-ish. But there is a storm supposed to come in, so maybe we should leave _earlier_ to try and beat it. You know, according to the Federal Highway Administration, out of the typical six million car accidents a year, almost twenty-two percent of those are due to weather. From there, roughly six _thousand_ people are killed in weather related accidents, and four hundred and forty-five thousand injured. Isn’t that crazy? Four hundred and forty-five thousand people. All it really takes to be safe driving during a storm is to go slow, use your headlights, and look out for other cars. Or to just not do it at all!”

“But,” I quipped, “abstinence never works, you know. Something’s always gotta give.”

He half-laughed while starting the car. “It’s proven that abstinence is the least effective use of birth control, actually.”

“That’s ‘cause they only push it on teenagers, and lemme tell you—teenagers do _not_ stop screwing just because adults tell them to.” I popped the tab off the Red Bull can and took a drink immediately.

While pulling out of the parking lot and heading back towards the highway, he asked, “What do you think is the most effective form of birth control for teens, then?”

I had to think about that one. “Fear, probably.”

He laughed fully at that one. I tried not to let it go to my head. “Oh, do tell,” he urged.

“Think about it, Reid! The only thing that’s gonna stop high schoolers from getting knocked up is fear of what’s gonna happen if they do. And I don’t mean the Christian shit—no one’s gonna believe they’ll go to hell for getting laid. I mean, like, dropping out, being a stay-at-home mom forever. The boys having to quit sports, give up their dreams to be a dad. Shit like that. Nothing’s scarier than being dead-ended at seventeen.”

“Jesus,” he laughed. “That’s borderline bullying them, at that point. I was just gonna say to give them free condoms.”

“Well … that too, I guess.” I bit into a twizzler while grinning at him.

Conversation flowed after that. I talked him into trying some of my Red Bull, he guarded the trail mix with his life. At one point, he put his hand on my thigh to stop me from crawling into the backseat to and grabbing my taser, and I lost the ability to speak for five minutes. He thought I was sulking, and I let him think that, because the alternative was admitting that the feel of his warm hand, big enough to almost entirely cover my thigh, had rendered me speechless.

We switched off driving at two. He complained the entire time about how fast I was going, then nearly screamed at me when I took one of my hands off the wheel to shove his face away.

We bickered. We laughed. And every passing second, things felt more and more off.

For example: one time I glanced over to see if he was looking so I could snag some trail mix, and he was already staring at me. And he didn’t look away, even when I turned my eyes back to the road. When he stretched out his arms and legs, one of his arms fell behind my headrest for a moment to graze the back of my head. I stiffened, he pulled away. He ditched the sweater vest and tie, and undid the first two buttons of his shirt. If I wanted to crush my heart, I would say he was peacocking. But I knew he wasn’t.

The part that made me most unnerved was when he put his hand on my knee—he was trying to grab the pack of apple juice in the back—and he just sort of. _Slid it_ upwards until it was on my upper thigh. He definitely felt my thigh jump under it, but he didn’t move.

I’m not gonna lie. The feeling of his slender fingers wrapping around my thigh kind of did things to me. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, trying not to clench them together, not to give away my sudden urge to shove him into the backseat and beg for him to take me then and there and hard and fast and _dirty_.

It was a pointless daydream. Car sex was way too unsanitary for Spencer.

When he came back into the front seat, he unscrewed both bottles and passed one to me. All I could do was hope that he didn’t notice my hand shaking when I drank it, and that whatever was going on with him would pass quickly.

If I had to go the rest of this car ride with him constantly _touching_ me, I probably wouldn’t be able to control myself. And lately I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tension between you and Spencer stretches more and more, before a suggestion from JJ makes it snap.

We arrived in Arkansas at six, as predicted. By then, Spencer had already found us a motel for the night, and had booked our rooms in advance—which I did not know motels would do.

When I finally pulled into the lot, my legs were almost logs with how stiff they were. I groaned loudly outside the car, stretching my limbs. I cracked my neck and back while Spencer got our bags out of the back of the van.

“Come on,” he called over his shoulder. “I call dibs on first shower.”

“Ugh, you suck.” But he was carrying my bag for me, so I didn’t mind that much. “If you use all the hot water, I can’t be blamed for what I’ll do to you.”

He snorted. “It’s a motel, how much water do you think they’ll have, anyways? If you really want a warm shower, the best plan would be to take it together.”

 _What the fuck?_ I fully tripped over my own feet, only barely catching myself on an outdoor ashtray stand. _Did he actually just make that joke? Spencer fucking Reid?_

He walked inside, never even pausing, while my mind skipped over like a broken record.

_Take it together, take it together. The best plan would be to take it together. Spencer fucking Reid._

I hurried in to catch up, coming in just as Spencer got the room key from the man behind a glass partition. “There she is,” he said, beckoning me forward. “Have a nice night.”

“You too,” said the man, already bending back over the newspaper he held.

Silently, I followed him out of the building and across the lot to where our room for the night was. He didn’t seem to notice me staring at the back of his head, trying to see inside it. He swung the keys around on his finger the whole time, our two bags held in one painfully strong grip. The veins in his forearm were more distracting than the fact that he had _basically_ said we should shower together. _I want to bite those veins_ , I thought.

Inside, he tossed a bag on each twin sized bed—it would be hilarious watching him try in sleep in that—and the keys on a nightstand. I followed him to his side to stare at the less-than-impressive bed set. “What are the chances we’re both getting lice after this?”

There was a visible shudder from the man. He absentmindedly ran his hand through his hair like he could already feel it. “Please, don’t bring that up. I’m already terrified of bed bugs.”

“Aw, you don’t want to bring back a couple friends? Can’t picture them just crawling through your hair?” I skittered my fingers up his back, laughing when he jolted away and smacked at my hands.

“Stop,” he whined. “I’m gonna need to take a bath in bleach, now.”

Smug, I hopped onto my bed and called through the bathroom door he had slammed behind him, “Don’t forget to wash behind your ears! They love the warmth!”

The only thing I could make out of his response was a muffled mix of cursing. After ten minutes of him no doubt scrubbing off three layers of skin in the shower while I got my things ready for my turn, my phone went off with a message. I picked it up to see Penelope had texted me.

_A little birdie told me you and Spencer are road tripping??_

How does she just know things? _I thought you were recalled to help save the world?_

_A girl’s always got time to wingman. How’s it going? Does your hotel only have one bed? Please say it only has one bed._

_Life isn’t a hallmark movie. He’s in the shower. We are sleeping in two beds. We’ll be back tomorrow, it’s whatever._

_You should wait for him in a towel ;))_

_The towels are in the bathroom. Where he is showering._

_You can’t tell me you two are gonna be stuck together in confined quarters for almost 2 days and aren’t thinking about boning!!_

I paused. Should I tell her about the weirdness? How he didn’t correct the cashier who thought we were dating, all the touches in the car, the fucking shower joke?

_He’s been acting kind of weird._

_????????_

_He made a joke about us showering together._

_!!!!!!!!!!!! Brain processing, give me a second_

I could hear her squealing. It probably could have waited until I got back—this would distract her from the work she had to do for the Bureau.

_Idea: you hop in there with him_

_Hmmmmm new idea: no._ I rolled my eyes. Of course she would have started in with those jokes. Probably shouldn’t have told her at all.

_DO!!!! SOMETHING!!!!!!! When have you ever known Spencer to joke about something like that?? Never????? The answer is NEVER!!!_

That was true. But we were friends, and friends joked like that. I told her as much.

_You’re killing me. Literally killing me. LIT ER ALLY killing me. Gotta go b4 the big guys find me out, but I am passing this information to JJ in hopes that she will talk some sense into you._

“What? No!” I whisper yelled, shaking my phone in my hands like she would feel it, almost throwing it off the bed. If JJ found out, then the rest of the team probably would, too. But Penelope had stopped talking, and barely seconds later JJ texted me.

_SPENCER MADE A SHOWER JOKE?? SPENCER REID?? OUR SPENCER???????_

I grabbed one of the pillows and screamed into it. Fucking Garcia. Fucking Spencer.

_It’s not a big deal. But also what do I do._

The bubbles popped up, disappeared, popped up, disappeared.

_He’s already in the shower?_

_Yup._

_Here’s what you do: what till he’s out, go in, DO NOT TAKE YOUR CLOTHES IN THERE. you come out of that shower in a towel, act like everything’s normal. I used to do it all the time with my boyfriends it always works._

_I can’t do that are you crazy I might as well get in there with him right now_

_I mean. That’s also an option._

Jesus _Christ_ , who did they think I was? Sure, no biggie, just jump in the fucking shower with the love of my life, no big deal!

_It’s really not._

The towel thing, I was considering. It was more ‘ _oh, would you look at that_ ’ than ‘ _I AM A WILLING WHORE PLEASE GRACE ME WITH YOUR DICK SIR_ ’. Besides, if I did it and he didn’t react, then that was that. I would know that all these signals I had been seeing were nothing but my own mind misinterpreting things. And if he did react then … that was that.

The water shut off in the shower. Fuck.

_I have to go, I’ll text you later._

_Or not :)_

I stood up, then sat back down, then stood up again. By the time Spencer got out, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, clutching my bag filled with my travel toiletries. “Took you long enough,” I jabbed. My hair was pulled into a bun so it wouldn’t get wet, but I still had to blow a few strands out of my face when I stood to walk by him.

God, he was gorgeous. Wet hair slicked back, shirt still sticking to his skin from the water, towel slung over a shoulder. His sweatpants hung low on his hips—I didn’t dare let my gaze linger.

“Just wanted to make sure I used up all that nice, hot water,” he shot back, belly flopping onto his bed.

I glared at his back but didn’t press it. If there really was no hot water left, I would be putting salt in his coffee.

\- — - — - — -

_**(Spencer)** _

The second the door clicked shut behind her, I was grabbing my phone and calling JJ. She answered almost immediately. “Nothing’s working,” I said before she could greet me. “I’ve done everything you told me to, and it isn’t working.”

“Um, okay. What have you tried so far?”

Maybe it was pathetic, using someone else’s tactics to try and get my crush to notice me. But she was the one who offered them up in the first place, so it would be rude not to listen, really. “Uh, the—the touching her. Like you said, back, thighs, head, I’ve been doing all of that. And I’ve been joking around with her—but that’s not any different than how we usually act, JJ!”

When she spoke again, it sounded too reassuring, like she was calming down Henry after a tantrum. “Well, don’t freak out now. Are you sure you’ve been touching her enough? She’s _really_ big on touch.”

“Yes, I’ve been touching her enough!” I snapped. Then I lowered my voice, in case the shower wasn’t loud enough. “I’ve touched her thigh alone twice, JJ. Twice!”

She sighed. “You do joke around a lot, you have a point there. If she isn’t responding to anything, then you’ve gotta go bigger.”

“Bigger? I can’t go bigger. I’m already going pretty big, and she isn’t noticing anything.” I rubbed the back of my neck.

“Well, make a dramatic statement, then. Something that can’t be brushed off. Be bold, Spence.”

Before I could splutter out my protests, she was interrupting me. “I have to go, soon. The brass doesn’t want us taking long calls.”

“Oh, how are things down there, by the way? Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re all good, I think things are finally starting to die down. Honestly, all that rush was probably just the initial scare. But still, get back soon and safe. And Spencer?”

“Yeah?”

“Bold.”

I glanced towards the bathroom door. Even though I teased her, I had actually showered mostly in the cold. That was unrelated to running out of hot water, though. “Bold. You got it, JJ. Thanks.”

“Anytime.” She hung up on me, and I tossed my phone onto the cushions.

Bold. Be bold. What was bold?

\- — - — - — -

This was a bad plan. I stared at myself in the mirror, towel wrapped around my torso, water dripping down my legs. A bad plan. But it was the kind of bad plan that you couldn’t get out of, because I had kind of already left my clothes out there, so I didn’t have a choice.

The thing about most motel towels is that they aren’t made for the art of seduction. They’re scratchy, small, and thin, made to be easily disposed of. If I had a lush, silky robe, then maybe I could be more confident.

But no. My entire plan to make Spencer so horny that he snapped and threw away years of non-attraction to immediately lay me in bed and rock my world with what I know in my _bones_ is a monster cock all hinged on one tiny green towel, and hope.

Lots of hope.

I sucked in three deep breaths, then turned the knob and stepped out. Looking at him right away would be too obvious, so I acted like nothing was up. Walked right past him to the end of my bed to dig through my bag.

He wasn’t saying anything. Was he speechless? And if so, was it speechless with incredible horniness or with incredible secondhand embarrassment? I chanced a glance up through my lashes to see him staring at me. He was stock still; not even his chest moved.

“What?” I asked coyly. “I forgot my clothes. And by the way, the water was fine.”

Spencer cleared his throat. He had already switched out his contacts with his glasses for the night—damn those glasses. They looked really good on him. “I—uh, I …” He didn’t finish. Just stared at me.

I grabbed my clothes and laid them out on the bed, grabbed the edges of my towel like I was about to drop it. Then I glanced over my shoulder and asked, “Give me a second?”

Now, he moved. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and rested his elbows on them. “No.” His voice was raspy, and in the low light of the room, his hair seemed to glow.

And he had just said no.

This wasn’t part of the plan. “I—no?” My heart stopped, rebooted, then started in double time. Was it possible to pass out from hoping too hard? I think I was about to do that.

“Get dressed,” he told me.

 _Get dressed. Get dressed. No. Get dressed. Spencer Reid is telling me to get dressed in front of him!_ I honestly couldn’t control my fingers from there—they popped open to drop my towel like he had pressed a button. Which he kind of did, I guess. A very tiny, invisible, secret button I liked to call lust.

I couldn’t breathe, now. At some point, I had turned to face him fully, but now I wasn’t sure what to do with my hands, or my body, or the fact that my nipples weren’t entirely hard yet because the room was really warm and he might think that either my areolas were really big or that I wasn’t entirely turned on by him, which was _not_ true.

One of his eyebrows twitched. When he spoke, it was a low tone, which I only ever really heard from him when he was mad. “Come here.” He beckoned with two fingers.

Again, did not have any control of my movements whatsoever. My legs just started walking, and I happened to be attached to them. I walked to Spencer until I was standing in between his knees, looking slightly down at him because he was still tall sitting down.

One of his hands rose slowly—an opportunity for me to walk away—and grazed the skin of my hip. I sharply inhaled, but did not move. Did not want to seem hesitant. The very tips of his fingers dragged across my skin, my stomach, my ribs, before going down to my waist and tugging me a bit closer. “Do you want this?” Pupils dilated, lips parted, pulse point thrumming. _Do you want this?_ “Do you want me?”

“God, yes,” I whispered.

He didn’t lunge at me like a wild animal, as I had often hoped. He stood slowly, unfolding to his full height. The hand on my waist slipped around to the small of my back. The other one cupped the back of my neck—his fingers were so long, hand so big, that they nearly reached all the way around. When he finally kissed me, it was a contrast to the way way he was holding me. Spencer kissed angrily, commanding my body to bend the way he wanted it, part my lips when he traced them with his tongue. 

But my body reacted in kind, pressing up against him, hands pulling him as close as possible, sliding under his shirt. It was like we were complete strangers but at the same time, like we had done this a thousand times. _My body knows you_ , I thought.

He slid a hand up the nape of my neck before grabbing a handful of my hair and pulling away. At this angle, my neck was craned to see him. It wasn’t necessarily painful; it felt more like when a dog drags their pups by the scruff. “A towel?” He asked through gritted teeth. In one smooth motion, he turned and shoved me onto the bed. “A fucking towel? Do you know how overused that is?”

I panted for breath. My lips were tingling, wet from him biting at them. Every nerve in my body was telling me to throw myself at him with everything I had—but at the same time, he was tossing his shirt away, and the show was distracting me. “It worked,” I managed to say.

He crawled onto the bed, crawled over me, caging me in with his arms by my head. He looked mad. Spencer went down to kiss me again, nipping at my lips and using his tongue to soothe the pain. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted you?” His hand slid up and down my body, learning the feel of my skin.

My thighs were slippery. I wanted him to badly it hurt. My nails dug into his waist. “Please take your pants off.”

He attacked my neck with a flurry of teeth and tongue, ground his hips into mine just enough that I could feel the hard, heavy length of him tucked away.

_Spencer Reid has a monster cock, and I’m going to be able to verify it by the end of tonight._

“Please, Spencer, god, just take off your pants,” I begged. I pulled on the edges of his hair, but he didn’t care.

He lifted his head just enough to look me in the eyes. “You’ve waited this long. Can’t you be good and wait a couple more minutes?”

 _Holy fucking shit_. I wanted to touch him so bad, but I also wanted to be good for him. I had been waiting for this moment for so long, now. Could I even stay still until he got undressed?

But my questions didn’t need an answer, because Spencer was moving down my body, kissing each breast, then each nipple, then left a line of bite marks down my chest until—

“Fuck!” My back arched, head falling back to land on the thin pillows. “Spencer!”

He licked a broad stripe up my pussy, gathering all my juices on his tongue. “Shut up,” he demanded. “The walls are thin.”

“The walls are—fucking shit, Spence, please, please, god,” I sobbed. It had to have hurt him, how hard I was pulling on his hair.

His tongue moved through my folds, licking up all I had to give him. Spencer pressed his thumb to my opening, teasing me. I could barely breathe—could barely make out enough words to curse him out for that.

“So fucking good,” I could hear him mumble when he pulled away. He propped himself up on his forearms and watched me, already shaking and sweaty. “You aren’t leaving this bed until I hear you scream my name, sweetie.”

Sweetie. He had never called me that before. It was such an innocent name, coming from the mouth of someone who was sliding two fingers into my cunt like he owned the place.

It didn’t take long for me to fulfill his wishes. The second he found my clit with his tongue, it was over for me. He rolled the stiff bud around, using his teeth to make my thighs start shaking. “Spencer! Spencer, fuck, Jesus, please, _please_!” The heels of my feet dug into the mattress on either side of his body, trying to stabilize me.

I felt my orgasm rising up in me like a tidal wave. It would sweep me away if I let it. It felt like the moment before jumping off a cliff, the pause before a fist connected with someone’s cheek, the excitement in not knowing what you were dealing with. 

His fingers curled in a ‘come hither’ motion, grazing against a small patch inside of me like made me moan embarrassingly like a porn star. If we had any neighbors, they would probably start banging on the walls soon. I don’t think I’d even hear it.

Spencer pulled away and crawled up my body, leaving his fingers inside me. His thumb move up to brush against my bud, sending shock waves of pleasure through my body with every sweeping motion he made over it. When he kissed me, it felt like an order to taste myself on his tongue. I did so gladly. When he moved to my breasts, biting down on one nipple possessively while shoving a third finger inside my heat, I clutched his arms so tightly that my nails left red trails.

My orgasm roared through my body, heat licking at my nerves, my legs shaking and clenching around his arm. I bit down on his shoulder to stop myself from screaming. He groaned audibly, shivers racking his torso. “So fucking good,” he praised again. “So good for me.”

But it still wasn’t enough for me. Not when he was pulling his fingers out and looking dead at me while sucking off my juices. “Pants—off—now— _please_!”

Chuckling darkly, he got up and discarded his sweatpants. The outline of his cock stood out under the fabric of his boxers. My jaw slackened, eyes unable to move.

“You’re so desperate, aren’t you?” He murmured. He leaned over me, prostrate and weak on the bed. “How long have you been wanting me?”

“So long,” I whispered. I reached up to card my fingers through his hair, but he pulled back. All I could manage was a whimper of protest. 

His thumbs hooked in the elastic of his boxers. His head crooked to the side, examining me like a specimen on the table. “A long time? This whole time?” 

I nodded. The fan above was whirring noisily, the only noise in the room. “God, Spencer … haven’t you seen it?”

His eyes darkened. In one fluid motion, he dropped the boxers and fell over me, grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking my head to the side. “Haven’t seen it,” he grunted. “You’ve been so quiet. Embarrassed of me?”

“Never,” I breathed. My backed curved towards him. There wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t belong to him right then, not a single part that wouldn’t walk to the non-existent edges of the earth if he wanted. “Not you. Never you.” My eyes fluttered shut when he placed gentle kisses on my neck. Despite the softness, it felt like he was holding a knife to my throat. Each kiss was a threat. 

Spencer hummed deep in his throat. “I’ve been wanting you, too.” His nose followed the veins in my neck. “Didn’t know how to tell you. Guess all it took was a bad joke and thigh touches, huh?” 

“A bad joke and thigh touches, title of our sex tape.”

He snorted, breaking from his serious character for a moment to muffle his laugh in my neck. “That was horrible. I think you should stop talking, now.”

“How are you gonna make me?” His hard length pressed against my thigh. He was so _close_ to me. It felt like there was nothing else in the world besides him, right now, in this moment. My gut was a Molotov of emotions—fear, lust, impatience—and all it would take was one little push from Spencer for it to explode. 

There was a brief pause, where his lips worked over my pulse point. I could feel the moment when he grinned—his teeth grazed my skin. He kissed me again, deeper than before, his tongue dominating my mouth while he ground his hips against mine. His dick brushed my folds, but didn’t breach the entrance. Despite my audible groan, he didn’t stop teasing me, pressing his head against my core without ever actually entering me. The slickness between my thighs soon coated his tip, making it hard to entirely focus, knowing that that was my arousal on him. 

_(On his monster cock. Shut up.)_

“This is gonna change things, you know,” he warned me. 

“I’m pretty sure things are already changed,” I replied. “Road trip rules means nothing sticks, though.”

“Oh, really?”

“Mhm. It’s Vegas rules. What happens on the road stays on the road.”

“So if I do— _this_ —” he pushed inside me a couple inches, not going entirely in. “This won’t stick? It won’t be mean anything as soon as we’re back?” 

I stared at the water stained ceiling through blurry. I couldn’t tell if the tears were from the orgasm, or the fact that I was pretending that I didn’t already want to spend every waking moment of the day with this stupid, brilliant man. Trying to focus. Trying _not_ to beg. “Not a thing!” My voice was too high, strained. 

He hummed thoughtfully. His eyes weren’t on me—he was watching the place where our bodies joined. When he pushed in the next few inches, it was more like he was trying to test me rather than do anything for his own pleasure. “You’re just gonna let it all go?”

“Road trip rules.” Sweat dripped down my neck. Everything was an over stimulation. Everything made my skin burn. Nothing could make me happy until I got him, all of him.

“Interesting. Guess I’ll have to make this count, then.” With no further warning, Spencer thrust the rest of himself into me, prompting a loud shout from me. My eyes briefly rolled back—he filled me up in a way I didn’t know was possible, not from anyone else, at least.

He set a quick tempo, slamming into me at his own pace. All I could really do was hold onto his shoulders and hope that he wouldn’t entirely break me. 

“Spencer—fuck—faster!” The bed shook dangerously under us. If it broke, would he even notice? The hand in my hair tightened, almost to the point of pain, pulling my head back. I didn’t mind. I was quickly discovering that Spencer had a thing for necks. The sting made my eyes cross, especially when he decided to bite my exposed throat, leaving his mark. My cunt clenched at the thought of walking around with his possessiveness on me.

He moaned in my ear shamelessly. “Fucking shit,” he panted. The golden brown curls that sprung from the shower fell around his face, grazed my chest. His free hand squeezed my tit, circling and pinching the nipple into a tight peak. “Knew you’d feel so fucking good—you’ve been hiding this shit, trying to act all shy and innocent. But you aren’t, are you?” 

When I couldn’t respond past moaning his name, he released my breast to wrap his fingers around my jaw, digging them into my cheek. His thumb slipped under my lips, pressing against my teeth. 

“I asked you a question.”

He pulled out and slammed into me in his entirety, moving my whole body with his strength. His hips slammed against mine, the pornographic sounds of skin against skin increasing with his demand.

“No, I’m not!” I gasped. The second my teeth parted, his thumb slipped into my mouth, pressing down on my tongue to gag me. My lips closed around the digit, sucking on it. His rhythm stuttered before recovering.

“I know what you’re doing, and it isn’t going to work.” He yanked his finger out, not caring that it scraped against my front teeth, and applied it to my clit, rubbing quick little circles around it. My legs jerked, wrapping around his hips to pull him closer. 

His cock dragged across my walls, splitting me open with his size. When he bottomed out, he would slow down a little bit so I could feel the way he bumped my cervix, then he’d speed up so it would hurt more when he hit it.

I wailed like a cock-whore, dragging my nails down his back. Again, with the pressure to my clit, that bubble of pleasure started growing in my belly, filling up like a helium balloon, ready to lift me up and out of the room. “Fuck, Spencer, please, please, I need to come, I need to come so _bad_!” Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, the constant stimulation to my face, chest, and cunt getting to be too much.

Spencer mouthed over one of my nipples, drawing it into his mouth and nipping harshly. “Do it,” he ordered. “Come on my cock like you want to.”

With his permission—slash nudge over the edge—I unraveled into a sobbing mess under him, thighs tensing and walls clenching around his dick, still pumping in and out of me, fucking me through my orgasm. I could barely make out a weak, “Oh, god, _fuck_ …”

Spencer groaned and pulled out to release himself over my belly, pumping his dick to milk out his own finish. His head fell back, throat exposed, chest gleaming with sweat, rising and falling with each struggling breath. From this angle, in the warm hotel light, he looked almost godly. I could see red marks curling around his arms from where my nails had unintentionally scratched him.

Still bracketed by his thighs on my hips, I flexed out my fingers. They had been so tense that it hurt when I stretched them. The spot on my head where he had pulled my hair ached a bit, but no more than the soreness between my legs. “I _just_ got out of the shower, man,” I blurted, gesturing towards the mess on my stomach.

Spencer chuckled airily. He didn’t look at me as he pushed his hair out of his face with both hands. “I’ll get you a towel. Just—just give me a second.”

“Oh, please. Take your time. I’ll just enjoy the view.” Despite saying that, I couldn’t keep my head up any longer. My eyes slid shut while I relaxed into the covers. Exhaustion hit me like a bag of bricks to the head, weighing down my limbs. 

He took a few more deep breaths before getting off the bed. His fingers brushed my hair out of my face and then traced the bridge of my nose down to my parted lips. He paused there before pulling away and walking into the bathroom. I heard the cabinet door open, then the water running. Eventually, he came back in to wipe me down, swiping it efficiently over my belly. Ever the gentleman, he asked if I wanted him to bring me my pajamas. All I could do was groan dramatically and curl up. 

Spencer huffed a laugh and got into bed next to me. He grabbed my waist and pulled me into his embrace. He was so warm, I didn’t really mind that we were both sweaty and gross. He pulled the covers over us, keeping me close. The light flicked off. Moonlight fell through the curtains, making the arm he had draped over me nearly glow. 

Now that things had calmed down, and I wasn’t thinking with my cunt anymore, the rational thoughts began to creep in. 

_Oh, god. What have I done? And what’s going to happen next? Fuck. I have to pee._

\- — - — - — - 

I woke up the next morning to a pair of lips pressing themselves to my forehead. FBI paranoia made me pretend to be asleep still. It took a moment, but then I remembered. 

_Oh boy. He isn’t kissing me one last time before he kills me, is he?_

But no. Spencer pulled away, and soon I heard the door of the motel room open and shut quietly. 

_Okay. So he isn’t killing me. He’s just abandoning me in Arkansas. That’s better, I think._

I shot up as soon as I felt it was safe. My eyes darted around the room, looking for something I could never find. There was a note on the bedside table. It read: _I went to get us breakfast and gas. We already have a late start, so get ready quick_. My mouth was dry, gross. Hope he hadn’t gotten a whiff of that when he kissed me. And my legs—well, they were understandably sore. It took exactly thirty seconds for me to work up the nerve to get up. I grabbed my toiletry bag and went into the bathroom to clean myself up.

“Holy shit!” I yelled, staring at myself in disbelief. “Jesus _fucking_ Christ, Spencer!”

On my neck, smack dab where anyone could see it, was a _huge_ hickey-bite mark combo, red and purple and did I mention _fucking huge_? The thing was the size of a fucking jell-o cup. I could try and cover it with concealer, but it wouldn’t be fully hidden. And then, lower down, more purple bruises, littering my chest. How did I miss him marking me up like that? How did _he_ miss himself doing it?

 _Unless he knew what he was doing. Unless he wanted to mark you up. Wanted to make sure you remembered what happened_ , a small, evil voice whispered in my head. 

But that went against the road trip rules. The rules that we didn’t want to talk about, the ones that said we wouldn’t mention this when we were in Quantico. The ones that determined this was temporary, replaceable, and forbidden. 

I took a deep breath and started the shower. By the time I got out, I would forget about the sex, forget about everything we said, and get back to business. Because that was what we needed to do, in order to preserve the friendship. And hopefully, _hopefully_ he would know to do the same. 

When Spencer got back, I was on the bed, reorganizing my go-bag. I had changed into my second pair of pajamas, sweats and a tank top. It was too scary to look up at him, so I just pretended like there was something wrong with the zipper. “Morning,” I said cautiously. A test in the waters. 

“Good morning. I got bagels.” He tossed the bag into my lap. Still warm. 

“Thanks.” Daring a look out of the corner of my eyes, I saw that he was picking up his clothes from the last night and shoving them in his bag. “We heading out, soon?” 

“Yeah. Let me just, uh, finish this up.” His voice was strained and high pitched. To be fair, his voice got pretty high regularly, but this time was a different high, a stressed, uncomfortable one. I used to pride myself on knowing what was going on with him by the pitch of his voice, but now I wished I couldn’t notice it.

I hummed my assent. The bagel stuck in my throat. Swallowing was painful. Looking at him was painful. Moving was still painful. Thinking too much about last night hurt more than anything. 

“If we stick to a stricter schedule today and push the speed, then we should arrive late tonight. I called Hotch in the car—nothing new. I said we’ll call back in around noon, is that okay?”

“Yup. That’s cool. Back to the road, then.”

“Back to the road,” he agreed.

And I guess that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! follow me on tumblr: dontkissthewriter


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You and Spencer know things won’t be the same when you get back to Quantico, your friendship is irreversibly damaged. Now’s the time to have angry sex and cry, right?

_**(Spencer)** _

I had too many regrets to count in life. It was the one of the few things that would make me hate my near perfect—despite popular belief, it was possible, just harder for me to forget things—memory. The earliest regret I could remember was choosing Lord of the Flies over The Hobbit for my mother to read to me at bedtime. It gave me nightmares for weeks afterwards, and not even Bilbo’s adventures killing the dragon could soothe me. It only went downhill from there.

But fucking my best friend, love of my life, and owner of my lightly battered heart in a cheap motel room on top of a dubiously stained comforter, that probably took the cake for biggest regret.

It was the paradox of my lifetime. I both achieved and lost everything I wanted in one night. On one hand, making love to Y/N was something I had dreamt about for years. But on the other, it _wasn’t_ making love. It was screwing. And it wouldn’t mean anything after we got back to Virginia, she had said so herself. Road trip rules. I had never heard of road trip rules, but I should have assumed that it was one of those unspoken things people seem to pick up on through social cues—not actual, literal rules everybody could find.

I should have stopped when she said that. Should have pulled out, gotten dressed, and told her I didn’t want to forget about it. Didn’t want it to be a one-time thing. I wanted her, yes, but not without all of her. 

But I didn’t do that. My stupid, horny, monkey brain decided that this was the only chance I was ever going to get. But stupid, horny, monkey brain was gone, and all that was left was stupid, sad, human brain who wanted to be able to hold her hand, not her boob. Well. Not only her boob.

And now, I was just driving a car, trying not to focus on the way that I could still feel every place she had touched me last night. I woke up looking like I lost a fight with a street cat. There was a bite mark on my shoulder. Scratches all up and down my back. She wasn’t even acknowledging it. Wouldn’t look at me. She sat there, staring out the window, working her way through the bag of pistachios. I wanted one, but I did not want to ask for one. I had the feeling she would throw the bag out of the window and say we ran out. 

I blamed this on JJ. Her and her stupid advice telling me to touch her thighs. It got to my head. There was nothing romantic about touching her thighs! I should have done something romantic, like her laundry, or letting her borrow my travel shampoo because I know she likes the way it smells. Even talking to Morgan would have worked better. The second we stopped for a gas break, I would call her and let her know that it failed miserably. But I would also have to find a way to do that without letting her know we slept together. 

I should say something to her. Should I say something? I cleared my throat and sat up a bit straighter, but before I got the chance, she said, “It’s about noon. Should we call Hotch?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah, for sure. Let me just …” I fumbled around in the center console for my phone, typing in his number with one hand. I glanced between the road and her. She still wouldn’t look at me. 

He answered after three rings. “This is Agent Hotchner.”

“Hotch, hey, it’s Spencer and Y/N. We’re just checking in, how’s everything going?”

Before he could answer, we heard a scuffle, then the phone was commandeered by Penelope. “Guys! Guys, guys, guys! Guess what?”

“What?” I asked, already laughing a bit from her tone. 

“I’m the master of everything! I fixed it!” Laughter in the background. 

“Fix—what do you mean, Garcia?” She sat forward, setting the pistachios on the dashboard. I slowed down a bit so they wouldn’t fall off. 

Penelope cheered for someone to take a shot, then came back. “I found the mole! Get this—just a janitor. It was all—all just a big ol’ scam. I love you guys, you know that? You two are so _cool_ , I—”

Again, the phone was stolen. Hotch was back, sounding decidedly more sober than the coworkers I could hear howling in the back. “Sorry about that. Penelope, uh, she figured it out. The crisis is over, air travel is being lifted, cases are coming in again. The Bureau thought it was an outside source trying to leak information about undercover agents, assignments, sensitive information. It turns out that it was just a janitor, stealing information from the hard drives after everyone left. We don’t know how he didn’t notice him earlier. He planned on selling the information, I believe.”

“Jesus, shit,” Y/N breathed. “That’s crazy. So, what, it’s just over? Just like that?”

“Pretty much. Garcia tracked the leak through twenty different countries before figuring out it was coming from inside. She was the only one smart enough to check the security cameras to find him. The Brass was so pleased, they gave her the week off. She decided to start her celebrations early, obviously. Then Emily pulled a bottle out of her desk, Derek wanted to play a drinking game, and JJ decided to put money on it. Now they’re all drunk.” He sounded stressed, but resigned.

I laughed. “Sure you don’t want to join them? Sounds like a blast.”

He didn’t say outright that that was funny, but I could hear the smile in his voice. “Someone has to be the responsible one. Listen, you two can take it easy, since there’s no more rush. Sight see a bit. Bring us back some souvenirs, something like that.” 

Neither her nor I dared to look at each other. If we did, one of us would have to jump out of the car due to the awkwardness. “You got it. What size t-shirt are you, again?”

(He was a large, but if I didn’t say something, we would go silent.)

In the background, I heard something hit the floor, then the terribly familiar sound of one Derek Morgan jeering drunkenly. “Everything okay?”

“Emily just broke a lamp. I have to go, drive safe.” Hotch hung up without waiting for us to bid adieu. 

Y/N laughed, turning in her seat to look at me. “Can you believe they’re getting drunk without us? We’re the drunk duo! This is ridiculous, I should file a complaint.”

“I don’t know, I think we’d be too much for them to handle this early in the day. Remember the time at the bar when we—”

“Did karaoke on the tables?”

“No, the other time—”

“When we joined a bachelorette party?” Bachelorette party, I forgot about that one.

“Not that time. I was thinking about when we got the entire bar involved in a trivia game, back in October?”

She clapped her hands excitedly. “I remember that, yeah! That was so fun. God, I haven’t been able to have fun like that in so long. You should floor it, so we can get back before the party’s over.”

Snorting, I said, “We’d have to average a hundred miles an hour the entire time there to make it in before five.”

“Gun it, then, I know what I said.”

And that was funny, so I laughed, and everything seemed fine and cool and normal until she reached up to rub at her neck and froze, fingers hovering over the faint red mark covered by makeup.

And everything froze. Because we both knew the reason her neck hurt was because I bit it, and we both knew I bit it because I wanted to leave a mark, and only I knew that I wanted to leave a mark because I didn’t like the idea of having sex with her for the first time and not giving her something to remember it by.

She wants nothing to do with me, I thought.

\- — - — - — -

He wants nothing to do with me, I thought. 

He wasn’t looking at me, wouldn’t speak to me, didn’t even ask for a pistachio when the only reason I cracked open the damn bag was to try and lure him into a conversation. 

Even now, sitting in the car twiddling my thumbs while he filled up the gas, he hadn’t spoken more than ten words when we stopped. It was painful, the tension. All I wanted to do was turn off the radio and scream at him to fucking talk to me, goddammit. I wouldn’t have had sex with him if I thought I would be losing my best friend. I mean, I know I said road trip rules meant we forgot about it, but the road trip wasn’t over, yet. We couldn’t even discuss it?

And now, there wasn’t any reason to be rushing back. We weren’t needed until tomorrow. There was still a day to try and figure things out before we were thrust back into the professional spotlight, where hookups were forgotten and feelings were ignored.

Why would he have sex with me if he didn’t have even a little bit of feelings? Why? Was it my fault? Was it something I did? My head hurt, trying to figure it out. He didn’t have feelings for me, because he was obviously just as eager to forget about it as he thought I was. In all honesty, he probably just slept with me because I basically threw myself at him with the towel thing—he probably thought I just wanted a quick and easy hookup. The towel thing was a stupid idea. It wasn’t romantic, it was just … horny. JJ’s advice only made things worse. I should yell at her about it. 

I opened my door just as Spencer opened his, getting into the car while throwing his phone in the backseat. “Where are—”

“Bathroom.” I hopped out and speed walked to the bathroom tucked away in the back of the gas station. The room was grimy, smelly, but the door had a lock and no one would hear me screaming. 

She picked up quickly. “Hello?” Her voice was slurred. I forgot the team was drinking. 

“It didn’t work, JJ!” Ah, shit. Now that I was actually talking about it, a hot lump grew in my throat. “I did your towel thing and it only made things worse. Now he won’t even talk to me.” Tears burned the back of my eyes. I distracted myself by reading the graffiti on the walls. 

_**FUCK BITCHES GET MONEY**_ , in red sharpie. **_SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PLANNED PARENTHOOD TODAY!_** , in blue pen.

“Pardon me? I’m sorry, I thought all my advice was stupid and pointless, why did you listen?” 

“Because, it seemed like a good idea at the time. And I guess it worked, because we hooked up, but now he won’t look at me, and I don’t know what to do, because I don’t wanna lose him.” On the last word, my voice broke, and a tear escaped down my cheek. 

“I—hold on, what the shit—give me a second.” There was a fumbling noise, then the sound of her walking very quickly, then a door slamming shut. “You and Spencer hooked up? That prick didn—gah, he annoys me!”

“JJ! Would you focus on me right now? This is all your fault, why would you tell me to do that?”

She laughed bitterly. “You two are so stupid, you know that? Always—always just running around, talking to everybody but each other, so fu—so fucking _stupid_. It’s like a shitty movie, you know? So clueless. Just, just, just _talk_ to each other. Just talk, you know? Will and me, we talk all the time. All the time.”

I sniffed loudly, rubbing at my eyes. _**Be gay, do crime**_ , in black, right over the hand dryer. _**ACAB**_ , by the mirror. “This isn’t helping. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

JJ snorted into the phone, almost laughing but mostly mocking me. “I’m saying that you already know what you need to do, you’re just too scared to do it.” And then she hung up.

Well, that was fucking useless. And a little bit mean. I shoved my phone in my pocket and leaned against the sink. I shoved my hair out of my face, thinking. What did she mean by that? You already know what you need to do. Maybe she was right. She said I was too scared to do it—she knew my biggest fear with my feelings for him was losing him. Maybe … maybe that was what she was telling me to do. 

There was no way we’d ever be able to be together, not while he didn’t feel the same way about me as I did him. But we’d already fucked up the relationship. Was JJ telling me to just go all in, ruin all of it, even if we would never be able to recover? Get the prize, lose the goal. If I knew what I had to do, but was too scared to do it, then that could only mean let go of Spencer. 

I had been in the bathroom for too long. In our job, we didn’t have any qualms about busting into one if we thought a coworker was in danger. Wiping at my face, I took five seconds to pull myself together before heading back to the car. 

Of course, the stupid genius had to notice that I was distressed right away. “You okay?” 

“Yup. Let’s go. When do we switch again?”

He started driving out of the parking lot. “Oh, I’ll just go the rest. We should make it back in Virginia at eight. I figure we can stop somewhere to eat at six, what do you think?”

“Sounds good.” My voice was tight. It couldn’t have been any more obvious that I was crying. 

We went in silence. I gave up on the pistachios and threw the bag in the back. He finished off the apple juices, and I ate the rest of the pretzels. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but all I could focus on was my short conversation with JJ. Let go of Spencer? Could I even do that at this point? I had loved him for so long, it felt like he was a part of me. Like, I worked for the FBI, I ate junk on the weekends, and I loved Spencer Reid. 

About seven hours in, after I had already distracted myself as long as possible—including counting to a thousand, watching the trees, reading part of Reid’s book of the day, and napping twice—, I texted her. 

_I think I know what I have to do._

She did not reply.

My stomach turned inside out. Outside, the clouds were rolling, like they knew what I was going to do. Losing my friendship with Spencer would disrupt everything, but maybe it would be for the better. Loving him had consumed my life for so long, it might be a whole other world outside of my feelings. A couple of raindrops hit the windshield. Had I been making loving Reid my entire personality? How long could I last without him in my life? 

Without thinking, I opened my mouth, but Spencer spoke first. He was bent over the steering wheel, watching the clouds. “I think we should pull over. It isn’t safe to drive in the rain, and it looks like it’s going to come in pretty hard soon.” 

Surprised, I followed his eyes. Dark clouds were over our heads, thunder rumbling ominously in the distance. “Uh. Sure, if you want.” 

Granted, I had wanted to just spit it out before he dropped me off at my apartment building and then run, but maybe this was smarter. There was time to talk it out. Be more adult. 

_Spencer, I don’t think we should be friends anymore. No, I’m not a twelve year old. Spencer, we need to talk. True, but I’m not breaking up with him. Spencer, I’m sorry, but I think we need to stop doing this. Stop being friends. Stop being so close. It’s only going to hurt us—me—if we keep going like this. We should be professional. That … was a start._

While he pulled off the highway and looked for somewhere to park, I practiced what I was going to say. I had to be nice, but short. Clear. It was going to hurt like hell. But it needed to be done. I trusted JJ. If she said the best thing was to just let go of him, then that’s what I would do. It wasn’t like anything else had worked out. 

By the time Spencer parked us in a deserted Target parking lot, the rain was coming down hard, turning our surroundings into a gray blur. The red lights from the sign filtered through the window, tinting the car in red. I watched the way the rain shadows from the windshield danced over his skin and felt my heart start peeling like old paint. 

Spencer sighed, slumping. “We’re gonna be here a while, might as well get comfortable.” He pushed his seat back so he could stretch out his legs, groaning. His eyes slid shut. 

All I could do was watch him. Fear had me paralyzed. I knew I had to do this. I didn’t want to. I opened my mouth to say, Spencer, I have something I need to tell you, but what came out was, “The road trip isn’t over.”

He cracked an eye to look at me. “What do you mean?”

Without my permission, I got on my knees on the seat, leaning over him so close our breaths mingled. “The road trip,” I whispered, “isn’t over. The rules still apply.” My hand danced over his front, playing with the buttons. 

Something flicked through his eyes. Maybe some anger, maybe some exhaustion, a whole lotta lust. “That so?”

“Mhm. What do you say, Spencer? One last time, before we, uh, never talk again?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think we’ll stop talking? Lots of people hook up and remain friends. In fact, in a survey completed by a thousand Europeans and Americans, almost fifty-seven percent of them say they had been in a friends with benefits relationship. It’s more common in women than men—”

“Spencer, come on.”

“—and the survey also showed that people in a ‘regular’ relationship report a lower overall sexual satisfaction than people in a friends with benefits one.”

I stared at him blankly. “Spencer. You know we aren’t—”

“One in three Americans have some sort of relationship with a coworker.”

Groaning, I fell back into my seat, dragging my hands down my face. “Jesus, Spence, you know we aren’t like normal people. You know those rules don’t apply to us.” 

“Why not?”

“Because normal people don’t go around getting shot at! Let’s say we bring this into work, we—we keep it on the down-low and we have fun every now and then. What happens when the team figures it out? They _always_ figure it out. Hotch’ll say we either cut it off or fill out a relationship form so we don’t get fucking fired. I know you don’t want this to be an official thing, and I don’t like people being all up in my business. So. One last time, before we get back, and we can just… . Forget about it.”

Spencer didn’t talk for a while. The only noise was the rain pounding down on the hood. When he did, his voice was small and thin. “So, you don’t want to be friends anymore? You just want to—to fuck?”

Shit, this was the moment I was dreading. I took a deep breath, looking out the window. I chewed on my lip, working up the courage. “I think it’s best if we step away from each other. Take a break. I—hooking up last night wasn’t the smartest move. It’s obviously going to change our friendship. I mean, shit, it already has! We should just chill out for a bit until we can move on from it. Think about it, Spence, we’ve been friends for so long, being like this would never work. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna sit here in silence for the next twelve hours, so… . You know.” I shrugged, still looking out the window, not wanting him to see the tears in my eyes. “One last time, then we split.”

“Forget about it?” He sounded angry, now. “Y/N, look at me.”

I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Didn’t. My arms were crossed petulantly over my chest, didn’t even know when that had happened. 

Out of nowhere, Spencer grabbed my arm and yanked on it, pulling me halfway over the center console. I had to balance myself by grabbing onto his shoulders. 

“You think you can just forget about me?” His face was a mask of anger, eyebrows drawn together, eyes unforgiving. The grip he had on my arm was bruisingly tight, knuckles white where the skin stretched over them. 

“I—no, but—”

“There is no but. You don’t get to try and throw me away.” He pulled me closer. “I’m not a fucking one-night stand. If you want to separate, sure, but there is no way in hell you’re going to forget about me.” His lips brushed my ear, breath raising goosebumps on my neck. “You’re never going to forget about my cock inside of you. Never going to forget the way I made you feel. Especially not after tonight.”

His fingers grabbed me by the jaw, forcing my head still while he kissed me roughly. It wasn’t like last night. There was no give and take in this kiss—it was only him taking, biting my lips, forcing his tongue into my mouth to sweep it out, claiming his territory. Unwittingly, I moaned, gladly letting him take control of the situation. My heart was aching, but my cunt was louder, and it begged for me to just forget about my feelings in lieu of one more night of bliss. 

So I did. I pushed all my emotions down and down and down and let myself fall into him, pull myself farther over the console until I was practically in his lap. 

Spencer let go of my jaw to grab my hips. He pulled me all the way over, forcing me to straddle him. There was more room for me to sit because of his seat being pushed back, which just—thank god for FBI vans. As soon as I was settled, he grabbed my jaw again; except lower this time, almost my throat. Even though he wasn’t yet pressing hard enough for my airway to be cut off, my breath still stopped. 

Just when I was getting lost in the kiss, he slammed me back against the wheel, distancing us. He kept the one hand on my neck, but the other went under my tank top, groping my tit. It didn’t feel like he was grabbing it to pleasure me, it was more like he was doing it just to prove he could. In one smooth motion, he pulled the top off, throwing it in the backseat. Instead of taking off my bra, he just fully shoved his hand under the cups, thumbing my nipple until it was a hard peak. “Spencer,” I wheezed, “please.”

My hands pulled at his shirt. I wanted him more than ever now that he was acting so … so _dominant_. It almost made me wish I had asked to forget about the previous night sooner. Was that fucked up?

He grabbed my wrists, throwing my hands away from his body. “Don’t _fucking_ touch me. Put your hands on the ceiling and don’t move them.”

He was using his field voice, the same one he used on unsubs. It made me comply immediately. My hands shot up to the car roof—not a very long trip. My elbows stuck out, one knocking into the window. 

His fingers returned to my neck, lightly squeezing. A threat, more than anything. “I can’t decide if I want to shut you the fuck up or make you beg for my cock like the whore you are.” The fingers tightened. It was deliciously painful. My cunt clenched around nothing, and I knew I was already soaking wet for him. “What do you think?”

There was no point in pretending I wasn’t desperate for him. “Fuck, Spencer, please. I need you.”

“Oh, I know you do, baby. The problem is, I don’t really know if you deserve me. What would you do if I just—just made you get me off, right here, right now, and then didn’t give you shit?”

I whimpered. My hips moved on his leg—I was trying to get friction without even realizing it. 

“You’d _like_ that,” he hissed. “You’d deserve that. You know you fucked up, and you know you don’t deserve to be touched.” The hand under my bra dropped to the crotch of my pants, rubbing me over the fabric. I gasped, belly tensing.

All I was was a shaking, excited mess on his lap, needy for anything he had to give me. And all he was was a handsome, very angry man who was currently untying the drawstrings on my pants so he could shove his hand down them. 

“You should be thanking me for even bothering with you right now.” The red lights of the Target sign made him look almost devilish. They threw the shadows and planes of his face off, distorting him. “Say thank you.” His fingers hooked into my underwear, pulling it up so the crotch rubbed painfully against my sex. 

“Th-thank you!” I gasped out. My fingers scratched at the ceiling, knees clenching around his thighs. It hurt in the best way possible.

One long, slender finger—I had dreamed about those fingers—slipped through my folds, gathering up my slick. Spencer pressed that finger to my lips. “Open.”

I opened my mouth. 

The second the gap was wide enough, he was shoving his index into my mouth, as far as it could go, pressing down on my tongue until I gagged, jaw forced open as wide as it would go. Still, I could not make myself hate it. Tears pricked at my eyes. 

“I like you more like this,” Spencer mused. He tilted my head to one side, then the other, examining me like a piece of art. “Open for me. Silent, for once.” 

My hands were balled into fists so tight they shook. I wanted to speak, but I couldn’t. The only thing I was capable of was begging him with my eyes. 

He must have noticed, because Spencer clicked his tongue and took out his fingers. It dragged along my tongue, snagging on my bottom lip before he wiped it clean on my pants. Before I had time to retaliate, he was kissing me again, hands on my thighs to hold me still. 

I took a chance and lowered my hands. They tingled from the blood rush. Slowly, carefully so as not to startle him, I laced my fingers through his hair, holding him close. He already felt how desperate I was, there was no hiding now, no point in being coy. When he pulled away, he pulled on my lip with his teeth before letting it go. We were both breathing heavily. The windows were foggy. It occurred to me that if anyone happened by, there would be no doubt as to what we were doing in the car. 

Just when I thought Spencer had calmed down a bit, he threw me back into my own seat. I yelped, barely able to stop myself from hitting my head on the window. Did he care? Nope, he was undoing his belt. “Take off your pants,” he ordered. 

My hands were moving before my mind had caught up. My shoes were in the backseat already, so all I had to do was yank my sweats off as quick as I could. He didn’t give me much time—he barely got his down to his thighs before he was grabbing me again, pulling me back into his lap. My underwear was still around my ankles. 

The second I was situated, his hand went into my hair, grabbing as much of it as he could—which was a fuckton, with how big his hands were—and pulling on it. Not to move my head so he could get to my neck, not even to hold me in place to prove a point. He pulled up until I was forced to balance on my knees, head almost on the ceiling, one hand holding onto his wrist and the other on the headrest behind him. “Ow!” I yelped, wincing. Tears of pain pricked my eyes.

“I don’t _care_ if I’m hurting you. You want to forget about me, I can’t stop you, but I will not sit idly by and let it happen. I’m going to fuck you so hard that you’re going to remember this night for years. And every time you try and replace this memory with some other male, I bet you’re going to remember exactly how you begged for me, too.” I had honest to God never seen Spencer this mad before. His jaw muscles were jumping, he was clenching it so hard. It sounded like every word was a struggle to not shout.

No words were capable of summoning up how he was making me feel. On the one hand, I kinda just wanted to pin him down and ride him until sunrise. On the other hand, his dick was out and he was lining it up with my entrance. He used the hand on my head as momentum to slam me down onto his cock while simultaneously thrusting up into me. Our bodies collided like a car crash, messy and loud and painful. There was no adjustment period for me—he just started fucking me like he was getting paid for it, keeping me in place by my hair. My nails dug into the leather seat. They would probably leave marks after we were done. 

The rough fabric of Spencer’s pants rubbed harshly against my ass, burning it as he made me bounce on his cock. There was another set of marks I would be ignoring for the coming weeks. 

“You’re gonna forget about this?” He hissed. He dropped my hair to grab my hips with both of his hands, controlling the agonizing pace. It was more painful than it was pleasurable–at least on my end. “Answer me.”

“Yes!″ I gasped. I adjusted my hands too, choosing to grip onto his shoulders instead. Maybe I could rip through his shirt if I tried hard enough. 

He didn’t like that answer. He couldn’t look me in the eyes, though, so instead he put his mouth on my collarbone and bit at it, punishing me. “Take off your bra.” His voice was muffled, but understandable.

The hardest part was having to reach behind me to undo the clasp while his hips still pistoned under me, threatening to force my back against the wheel so I was truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. Nevertheless, I got my bra off and tossed it to the side. At this pace, my tits were bouncing in Spencer’s face. he took full advantage of this opportunity and immediately started sucking on one of my nipples. 

I cried out his name, almost doubling over on him. I had to bury my head in his shoulder to muffle my screaming. 

“You fucking like it,” he panted. “You like being hurt. Don’t try and deny it. I should have fucking known what a dirty bitch you were.” Out of nowhere—I didn’t even notice his hand leave my hip—his thumb was on my clit. He rubbed the juices from my cunt in small little circles. 

“Fuck! Spencer, I’m—God, that feels good, I—” 

He was everywhere, all at once. On my tits, in my hair, my hips, my clit, my neck, even his shirt managed to rub against the soft skin of my belly to leave an angry red mark. There wasn’t going to be a single part of me left unchanged by this night. The thought, embarrassingly enough, made me well up again. Crying was probably a mood killer in his book, though, so I hid my face in his neck. 

If he felt the tears dripping down his neck, he didn’t let on. “You wanna come, Y/N?” 

“Yes,” I choked out. 

“Lemme hear you, then. I need to make sure you really want it. Want— _fuck_ —want you to admit you won’t forget me. Know why, baby? Hm?” He grabbed the back of my neck and lifted me up, so we were looking eye to eye. To my surprise, his were rimmed with red. “Know why?”

“N-no, no, why?” It was hard to talk. My airway was almost entirely closed by his hand. The most I could manage were slow, wheezing breaths. 

He laughed darkly. Bitterly. “Because I won’t forget you,” he crooned in a broken, mocking voice. Spencer shoved my face back into his chest, putting his chin on my head and immediately releasing my neck to return to my clit, rubbing tight circles that had my belly tensing and my thighs shaking. I could feel the sweat dripping off his chin into my hair. It was not as big of a turn-off as I thought it would be. “You wanna forget me, what about what I do? Oh, I don’t _get_ to forget.” On the word get, he slammed into me so hard stars spun in front of my eyes. “So you should have thought of that before you walked out in that _stupid—fucking—towel!_ ”

Each word was punctuated with a thrust. Finally, I felt the hot explosion inside of me. Like it was permission, I came seconds later, moaning his name. My walls clenched around his cock, milking it for every drop of cum he could give. Despite me going limp on top of him, Spencer didn’t stop fucking me. He kept thrusting right through my orgasm. He also didn’t stop stimulating my clit. 

When I came a second time, I had balled my hands up in his shirt so tightly that it was stretching out the fabric. I was silent, shaking, sweaty and sobbing with—

Pleasure, sadness, overstimulation, regret? 

Spencer allowed the silence to stretch between us. Just when I thought he had calmed down—or even fallen asleep entirely, stupid as it sounds—he whispered something. It took my frazzled mind a hot second to decipher.

“ _Try forgetting me, now._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! follow me on tumblr: dontkissthewriter


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The road trip was over. You and Spencer were over. It was supposed to be easier than this.

“She has found me—She has kissed me. All is shattered.”

—Virginia Woolf, _The Waves._

Things were awkward at work.

I know I should have expected this, but it hurt more than I thought it would. Like, a lot more.

And I think the team noticed, because suddenly, it was like there was a bomb strapped to me. Not me—Spencer and I both. Our metaphorical string of friendship was snapped, replaced by two opposing magnets that kept us at a distance the team seemed frightened to fill. They never brought it up directly, and maybe that’s why it took so long for it to hit me, because nobody came right out and asked, “What happened on that road trip?”

JJ tried to talk about it. Just once. Maybe if she hadn’t approached me so soon after we got back, had she waited a few days while I processed the new situation, I would have been more open to talking about it. But I wasn’t open. I was decidedly closed when she approached.

“Did you and Spencer—?”

She trailed off, seeing the way my face fell.

“I did what you said,” I told her. My eyes stayed glued on the papers in front of me. “Okay? You said to talk, so I talked. And… and I did the thing I was afraid to do. So. It’s over now.”

“Over?” She made to sit down on the edge of my desk, but I stopped her with a glare. “Y/N, what do you mean it’s over? You told him you—?”

I cut her off with a whispered, “JJ, _please_. I don’t wanna talk about it. I did what you said, this is where we are now. End of story. Can you just… just leave me alone?”

She looked at me silently for a moment before nodding. Her perfect eyebrows were drawn together, lips pursed like she had to physically stop herself from saying what she wanted to say. JJ left, but not before running her fingers over my shoulder soothingly.

I stared at the space where she had been. I stared beyond it, to the desk Spencer used to sit at. He had switched with Derek. I knew Derek had also tried talking to him, because earlier in the day I saw him following Spencer into the coffee room, then Spencer storming out—it was really the only way to describe him sometimes, all flapping jacket and set jaw and battery-ramming his way through the bullpen—into the open area. Once he saw me, hunched over my desk, eyes wide while I stupidly watched it happen, he turned right around and walked out of the room all together. I had looked over at Derek, standing just outside of the doorway to the coffee room, and saw that he was already staring at me.

I tried to avoid him after that.

Hotch noticed, but he didn’t openly say anything. In fact, he was probably the first person to see the difference. Our first day back, he walked into the round table room, looked between Spencer and I—opposite sides of the table, avoiding eye contact, body language defensive and hostile—and shook his head. Since then, we hadn’t been partnered in anything. It was probably only a matter of time before he realized this wasn’t a kiss and make up situation and called a meeting with us to discuss how we were acting like absolute children.

Which we _were_. I just didn’t want to talk about it.

I hadn’t realized how much my free time depended on Spencer until we spent all of it apart. He had infiltrated every inch of my life without even knowing it. Maybe it was just because I missed him

(Holy fuck, I didn’t know you could miss someone like this)

or maybe it was because we had spent so much time together that our lives started to naturally grow around the other’s, instinctively made room for the other one to live. Like trees—trees grew together, grew around each other, seemed to be one sometimes but was always two, even if you couldn’t remove one without killing the other.

But we weren’t trees, and neither of us were dead. His absence was a living thing, for sure. It felt like I could look over sometimes and see the empty outline of where he normally would be—on my couch, in my kitchen, on the bus next to me, in the desk across from me, on the jet couch which we always hogged—mocking me, blowing raspberries. Sometimes I wondered if he felt the same

(I really fucking wanted him to feel the same)

but I don’t think he ever did.

He didn’t even look at me.

When the time came for a monthly girl’s night, it surprised even me how excited I was for it. It made sense, though. All I had to do for the night was dress pretty and get wasted with some of my best friends. There was no work, no drama, no _worries_ just for one night.

“Hey, Spencer,” I slurred into the phone. My back was against the brick wall of the bar, stabilizing me.

I didn’t know how I got to this place. One second, Penelope was ordering us shots, and the next, I was stumbling outside, rubbing my aching forehead. At one point, I took out my phone to order a cab, and then I saw Spencer’s contact, and then—

Oh, yeah, that was it.

I got voicemail. I knew I would get voicemail, because right now Spencer was at a Russian film festival he had talked about for months and his phone was off. If he had actually answered, I would have hung up, probably, and then went back inside to drink some more.

“Um, I miss you, dude,” I laughed softly. There was no filter on me. All I wanted—needed—was for him to know. To get it all out and then hopefully, hopefully move on. “And I just—I just need to tell you that I never would have gone on the stupid fucking road trip if—I mean, if I knew it was going to be like this. If it was going to completely ruin our fucking friendship. But I mean—I mean, like, I still can’t make myself regret it, you know? I wish I could. Crap, I really wish I could regret it. But I don’t know if you noticed, I’m kind of selfish. So, I can’t. And, and, and… fuck, it’s cold out here.”

I sniffed, wiping at my cheek with the back of my hand. I wasn’t crying yet, but it was coming.

“I don’t hate you. I feel like you should know that, because you might be thinking I hate you, but I really don’t. Actually, I think _you_ hate _me_ , so maybe you don’t even care. Maybe you’ll get this message and immediately delete it, I don’t fucking know. Nothing makes sense anymore. Okay. I’m going to tell you something. Don’t… don’t freak out, or anything, alright? I’m kinda in love with you. Except, uh, replace the kinda with completely. That’s me, that’s what I am. I—I love you, Spencer, and I have for like, a long fucking time. Way before the road trip.”

My eyes filled up. I watched the people on the street walk, wondering where they were going, if they could hear me, if they had ever taken a risk so big it felt like bathing in gasoline and then dancing near a smoker. That was what this felt like.

“Don’t worry, though. I know you don’t feel the same, so. It’s okay. It just—I just—it _kills_ me, you know? It fucking _kills_ me to know that you regret what we did. Tha—that you probably _hate_ me now.”

That did it—my voice broke, lips quivering while the tears started to silently run down my cheeks. I took a loud, shuddering breath. I wasn’t done yet. There was still stuff left to say to him.

“And, just like, one more thing: I’m really sorry. I’m really, super fucking sorry that I ruined our friendship. For ruining everything. I’m so stupid, this is—I’m just really drunk right now, you know? And I needed you to know these things. To know that I’m not… not not caring of this situation. You know what I mean.”

My shoulders shook a bit—partially the cold, partially how hard I was trying not to break down sobbing on the phone.

“This is Y/N, by the way. From work.”

And I hung up.

Except it didn’t make me feel better. This was supposed to make me feel better—it was supposed to get it all out, take the weight off my chest. Now, though, as I fell into the cab that arrived and choked out my address through my tears, I realized it felt heavier than ever.

The next morning, I woke up to a steady pounding in my head. I scream-groaned into my pillow before sitting up. I was still in my dress from last night. Drunk me had, at least, been smart enough to take my shoes off and leave a glass of water on my table. Drunk me treated me so well.

It wasn’t until I started standing up that I realized the pounding in my head was actually coming from my front door—a steady _bangbangbang_ coupled with someone yelling through the wood.

“Fucking Christ,” I mumbled. My mouth was dry, gross. My eyes were caked in old makeup that I rubbed at while stumbling into my living room. There were cricks in my neck that I popped out.

When I finally got close enough to hear the person on the other side, I froze mid-step.

“Y/N? Will you let me in, please?” _Bangbangbang_. “Please, can we just—just talk for a moment?”

Spencer. Spencer, who had been ignoring me for the last two weeks. Spencer, who I had… had left that long, weepy fucking voicemail for!

“Fuck!” I whispered. I looked around, like there was something I could pull up to make him go away. There wasn’t anything to do, though. There wasn’t anything I could hide behind. Nothing to prevent this.

If I hadn’t been drinking previously, I would’ve thought that the jumping in my stomach was from nerves. It might had been both, honestly, but I still wanted to throw up because Spencer was here at my apartment and he was probably waking up all my neighbors and he was only here because I told him I fucking _loved him_ and—oh, fuck, he was here to tell me to leave him alone and stop being so weird.

There was nothing I could do to avoid this. For so long, I had been trying to skip this moment, this _exact_ moment since the minute I realized my feelings for him. The moment where I had to face the facts, throw all the cards down. I wasn’t ready _. I wasn’t ready_. I was wearing a skimpy dress and last night’s makeup and my breath stunk and—and I barely even remembered what I said on the phone. This wasn’t the way I wanted to do this. This wasn’t right, it wasn’t how I planned. 

My hands were shaking. I should not be shaking. Should not be so afraid of the man on the other side of the door.

“Y/N, please!”

It was the last plea that made me break. He sounded scared, almost. Despite his absence lately, my body was still hardwired to bend to him, make him happy, follow his lead. I went forward numbly, hand falling on the knob and turning it before I fully had time to think about it.

Spencer was there, dressed in his pajamas, fist poised to attack my door again. He froze, mouth locked in an O shape.

I didn’t say anything. I stepped back, crossing my arms and looking away. This was the closest we had been since we got back. Now was the time, I realized, the time he was going to let me down, tell me to move on. I could handle it. I _would_ handle it. Like an adult.

“Spenc—”

In one fluid motion, he stepped into my apartment, cupped my face in his hands, and kissed me.

I wish I could say that I kissed back, and it was totally amazing and awesome and there were fireworks, but I didn’t. I kinda just stood there, frozen. My lips were puckered, but I could not figure out how to make my body move to respond to his, all around me, lacing through my hair to hold me closer.

I did not move. I did not even manage to close my eyes.

He pulled back slowly. Eyes closed. Hands still holding onto me. His hair was still messy. It looked like he jumped right out of bed and came straight to my place. A small puff of air escaped his lips, which then curved into a tiny smile.

When I shakily exhaled, he opened his eyes. They were glassy and red. “Regret it?” He asked, shaking his head slightly. “You’re _sorry?_ I could never—never regret you. You are… you are every— _more_ than everything, to me. You’re the _only_ thing.”

“Spencer—”

“And I’m sorry,” he blurted. His hands around my head tightened incrementally. “Sorry I’ve been such an idiot, sorry I’ve been avoiding you, sorry I made you think I hate you, sorry for everything.” He stopped to lick his lips. “And I want you to know…”

He was tearing up. _I_ was tearing up. If he started crying, then I would start crying, and vise versa, it’s how we ended up sobbing together after watching Charlotte’s Web. My hands went up to hold onto his wrists, thumbs rubbing over the smooth, pale skin.

“I _need_ you to know that I could never hate you. I have loved you for so long, you are a part of me. There are no words I can use to tell you what you mean to me. There will never be enough.”

“You love me?” My voice broke. Tears fell down my cheeks for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, falling onto his thumbs. God, I didn’t even want to see how my makeup looked after my sob-fest last night.

He leaned in, resting his forehead against mine, so close our breaths mingled. “Yes.”

“You’ve loved me for—for a long time?”

“You remember that day on the jet, when you started cheating at chess to make the game last longer?”

“Mhm.”

“Since then.”

“Spencer, that was the first day we met.”

“That, too.”

I sniffed, backing away. I avoided eye contact while swiping carefully under my eyes. My thumbs came out with mascara and eyeliner smeared on them. Swallowing, I nodded, chewing on my lips. I looked at him and saw that there were a few tear tracks on his face, as well. I reached out and swiped at his cheeks. “Okay,” I croaked.

His eyebrows came together. Spencer was hunched over slightly, shoulders drawn in. He looked about ready to run. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“What does that mean?”

I reached around him and shut the door, grabbed his hands and pulled him in closer. “Okay, I love you.” I stood on tiptoes to kiss him—kiss him right this time. I put his hands on my waist and started walking backwards, leading him into my room.

We pulled apart only to mumble fragmented sentences to each other.

“God, I love—”

“You’re always so—”

“Been waiting for this—”

“So stupid, honestly—”

Until we fell onto my bed, already wrapped around each other. He unzipped my dress and pulled it over my head until he could toss it away. I popped open each of the buttons on his nightshirt without pulling away for a breath.

Kissing Spencer was a hell of a lot better when we weren’t angry, filled with boiling frustration and a lead tongue. I think I would give up both of those nights—the hotel and car both—if it meant I could be able to pull away and whisper, “Love you, Spencer, love you so goddamn much,” that much sooner.

Finally, we were both naked, my head on the pillows and one of his hands on my cheek, thumb swiping over the leftover tears. When he slid into me, it wasn’t with any of the pent-up emotions from before. It was all softness, sweet kisses, mumbled adorements into my hair, lips, neck. My ankles hooked behind his back; my hands went into his hair. I didn’t quite care about much else right then. I was too caught up in the overwhelming rightness of being able to finally hold Spencer Reid in my arms without fear of either of us pulling away.

_This is how we’re meant to be,_ I thought. _Intertwined, complete, happy._

His hands traced my body like I was made of dust, fingers barely skimming the surface. He placed his lips on the spot on my neck where he bit me and mumbled, “I love you.”

My collarbone. “I love you.”

The lip he bit at in the car. “I love you.”

My hair. “I love you.”

How many more places were there? How long had we been unconsciously tearing each other apart, rioting against our forced formalities?

I kissed the spots on his shoulders I had dug my nails into. Told him I loved him so many times, my mouth was moving on autopilot. This was the one phrase that would never start sounding like it was fake in my mouth, no matter how much I repeated it. The one phrase that belonged to the one man who had always been real.

Our hands interlaced above my head. There was no room for the cold air to come between us—he didn’t let me get far enough. When I came, it was a breaking, cracking thing, that bounced between my veins until I was practically purring underneath him, hips still moving. He followed seconds later, hands tightening around mine, curses falling out of his lips like snowflakes.

We didn’t get out of bed. Well, I didn’t get out of bed. He got out only to get a wet rag to wipe me down with, then quickly collapsed under the covers with me. I pulled them over our heads, burrowing into his arms. Spencer gladly held me. My head fit perfectly in the crook of his neck. His hands traced patterns I would never recreate into my back.

Just when I was about to fall completely into the arms of sleep, I heard him say something. It was so quiet; I don’t even think I was meant to hear it.

“ _She has found me—she has kissed me. All is shattered_.”

Spencer kissed my forehead, and I thought nothing more of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! follow me on tumblr: dontkissthewriter

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! follow me on tumblr: dontkissthewriter


End file.
